International film sales agency MoreThan Films has picked up rights to Sophy Romvari’s feature debut “Blue Heron” ahead of its world premiere as part of the Filmmakers of the Present section at the Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16).
“Blue Heron” is set in the late 1990s as eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Canada’s Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child. Cast includes Eylul Guven as Sasha, as well as Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Liam Serg and Preston Drabble.
In her director’s statement, Romvari says that, with her feature, she wanted to “push against what I feel is a fascinating limitation of fiction: its imperfect ability to depict personal memories. I’m most excited by the design of the film, as it employs a narrative structure that I believe disrupts the expectations of the traditional coming-of-age story.”
Toronto-based Romvari directed several critically-acclaimed short films, which premiered widely in the international festival circuit and put “Blue Heron” on the map as a debut to watch. Romvari’s thesis film, “Still Processing,” world premiered in Toronto before being picked up for digital distribution through Mubi. A retrospective of eight of her short films was made available on the Criterion Channel from 2022-2025. Romvari has also directed films for CBC Short Docs (“In Dog Years”) and Kino Lorber (“Remembrance of József Romvári”).
“Blue Heron” courtesy of MoreThan Films
Lidia Damatto, a founding partner at MoreThan Films, told Variety that the film “deeply moved” her and the team. “It is a strong directorial debut with a delicate auteur point of view from rising Canadian/Hungarian director Sophy Romvari. The film deals with complicated topics and emotions, from immigration to mental health, with a dreamy and graceful touch. We believe this will make the film resonate with international audiences beyond festivals.”
She added: “We are excited to once again have a film premiering at Filmmakers of the Present in Locarno, following the success of our two other films from last year, ‘Hanami’ by Denise Fernandes and ‘Kouté Vwa’ by Maxime Jean-Baptiste, which ended up both winning several awards at the festival and traveling quite a lot since last August.”
“Blue Hero” is produced by Vancouver-based Nine Behind Productions in co-production with Hungary’s Boddah. Gábor Osváth, Ryan Bobkin and Sara Wylie join Romvari as producers. MoreThan Films is an international film sales agency based between Barcelona, Berlin and São Paulo.
